Actions from Robert ColganMovable Type Pro 5.2.112015-03-05T14:55:42Zhttp://www.witf.org/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=feed&_type=actions&blog_id=63&id=541Commented on Smart Talk: How to treat addiction successfully in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2015:/smart-talk//9.91304#386892015-03-05T14:55:42ZRobert Colgan
All addictions are external attempts to either increase or decrease an internal energetic imbalance.
Identifying the nature of the energetic imbalance is the necessary first step to moving toward a successful treatment protocol.
Unless the underlying imbalance is accurately identified------treatment is less successful.

All imbalances are the sequela to some trauma.
Treating the trauma at its core----where it's held within, at the level it's held-------is the most successful approach.

Treating the symptoms of addiction isn't effective action.
Treating the underlying trauma that has created the imbalance is effective.

with the end result that if crime suddenly disappeared all those people would be out of employment.

Crime is "maintained" the better to guarantee income for all those who make their paycheck from those who are pursued, captured, prosecuted, incarcerated, probated.
The justice/penal system is based on PROFITS-----not on eliminating or reducing crime.

Putting more women into prison only expands the profits.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Are genetically modified crops safe? in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2015:/smart-talk//9.91025#385342015-02-17T14:09:32ZRobert Colgan
As I drive around here in southcentral PA during the Spring planting, I find it absolutely shocking to see that no-till farming with its generous application of glyphosates has created a moonscape in countless thousands of acres of farmland.

The insects are disappearing.
The birds are disappearing.
The animals are disappearing.

Yet the manufacturers of those herbicides--and pesticides--have insisted for years they are NOT a risk to the public.......even when it was revealed they have known for years they are endocrine disrupting carcinogens and that the companies had hidden the truth for years from the American public.

This is a menace far greater than smoking-------which killed what?--millions? before it was finally acknowledged the tobacco companies had known about and hidden the true health risks from disclosure.

Those glyphosates need to be banned-------IMMEDIATELY.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Over-medicated America? in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2015:/smart-talk//9.90822#383932015-02-02T14:29:27ZRobert Colgan
Once the drug mfgs realized how much money they could make from selling medications for ANY condition-------the gloves came off.

Once the drug mfgs recognized they could control the oversight of the certification process by altering the trial studies--------the game was over.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Top stories of 2014 -- Wolf win and domestic violence in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.90325#381562014-12-31T16:10:58ZRobert Colgan
Great show today.
Repetition can be a very good thing.

Happy New Year to all at WITF !!!

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Commented on Smart Talk: Hacking, cancellation of film release, and North Korea in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.90303#381142014-12-22T06:04:59ZRobert Colgan
If North Korea is the poster boy nation for anything in the world----it's censorship.
Their government's treatment of their citizenry has effectively shown 1984 to be non-fiction.
That such a dictator as Kim Jong-un-----one with blood on his hands------has the power to tell other nations, other people what they can say, portray, in their art, their books, their movies, their SPEECH----says much about the nature of free speech in the USA: that free speech is not that free....that it is more controlled and boundaried than it could be. Than it SHOULD be.

Censorship of expression means taking away from people their ability to think for themselves, even if that speech is not comfortable or when it is critical.
The only justification for censorship is when it definitively is protective of the rights of others.....and the last time I checked the assumption of the role of murderous dictator means that person's right to such protection no longer applies.

Dictators like Kim Jong-un are bullies. Bullies need to be challenged, to be confronted, to be publicly castigated for their actions. What Sony is doing here is backing down before a bully, and telling that bully they have the right to bully others.
They don't.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Dying with dignity proposed in PA in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.90193#380662014-12-15T17:09:44ZRobert Colgan
Every veternarian knows that "putting an animal down" when death is inevitable and imminent and there is suffering . . .is merciful.

We already have in place practices that fit the definition of "assisted death."

Every nursing home in the USA uses some form of palliative care for relief of physical struggle, and pain, in the final time leading to passing-----and the morphine and opiates used are themselves a means of promoting/accelerating death by suppressing heart and lung functioning: in effect, drug-assisted homicide.

Patients often will willingly forgo taking medications as they sense death approaching....sometimes the very meds that are maintaining survival by shoring up heart function: this could be construed as a chosen form of suicide.

There are no black and white areas here at all...but it is in the gray that all argument seems to be taking place...because of current belief:
the major part of the problem that I discern has to do with the paradigm currently holding sway in medical practice and public consciousness: "Life OR Death"

but that paradigm isn't in synch with reality: "Life AND Death."
. . .If we change the way we perceive death as enemy-----and begin to see it as merely part of the entirety of the life experience, (the journey), it loses its ferocity, and becomes what it is: the journey.

Once the fear factor is removed, people can begin to make more reasoned and emotionally sane steps in dealing with dying, including giving each person the right to choose for themselves how they wish to deal with dying.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Does addiction run in families? in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89875#377712014-11-13T14:57:30ZRobert Colgan
Good show.
I thought the two guests covered addictions well.

The idea that there is a genetic component to addiction is a no-brainer (pun)...I worked with the counselor who for years referred people with substance abuse issues in ARD to the proper facilities for help.
When she asked them whether their parents, or grandparents or aunts/uncles, etc had had a problem with substance abuse and got "no" on all of them----she'd then ask:"When were you adopted?"

The one thing that is so important is to give people when young the information if they are in family that has a genetic disposition possibility to addiction.
Without that information they can fall down the rabbit hole.
With that information they are at least forewarned the hole exists, and that they need to be oh so careful with their desire to join others in alcohol/street drugs/prescriptive meds.

Thanks for the show, and the other shows related to this one.
Valuable.

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Commented on Smart Talk: The rise of independent voters; Congressional candidate Lou Barletta in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89692#376772014-10-29T13:57:55ZRobert Colgan
The rise of independent voters is analogous IMO to Germans in the '30s announcing they weren't voting for the National Socialistic Party.........
it doesn't matter what people say or do----the duopoly Rs & Ds rule the roost in the USA and effectively keep all power flowing toward them.
The power continues to reside where it has flowed.
The power has been purchased by the richest to favor legislation favorable to their interests.

THE INSANITY CLAUSE: even though Congress has an incredibly low public confidence, virtually every election cycle the incumbents get re-elected to office. Doing the same thing, expecting different results ----only works a very small percent of the time, and usually when other conditions change, fishing for example.
FEAR-----the voters are essentially kept in a continuous state of fear--subconscious, sub-clinical, but real. The endless barrage of fear-laden news keeps the populace fearful, and therefore more easily controlled by the political marketers.
GERRYMANDERING----has guaranteed politicos tenure. And effectively thwarted opposition candidates.
ANOMIE-----it doesn't matter whether new people get elected into office: the system simply assimilates them and mutes any effective reform they champion. The voters know that this is what is happening.....and it makes them ultimately jaundiced about politics, and elections, in general.

The notion of democracy has never been a reality in the USA-----only lip service paid to it. The Declaration Of Independence speaks idealistically to freedom, to equality, but The Constitution ensures that is maintained by the richest, the most privileged, the most "entitled" to it.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Aging prison inmates in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89659#376692014-10-28T12:54:23ZRobert Colgan
One of the more depressing shows I have heard on RST.

We put people in prison.
Not to make them better people, not to let them learn from their mistakes and live more productive fulfilling lives............
not to show them that we understand people make mistakes, that we care about them as fellow citizens

We put them in prison because we are a mean-spirited, callous, heartless nation of vindictive, militant-minded, and legal recursive people in a patriarchal hierarchy.
We put people in prison because we have a prison system that treats caged human beings as inferiors...reserving the greatest pejoration for those who have murdered-------yet we openly condone murder and even reward those in officially sanctioned combat operations who kill others as "noble warriors."

Meanwhile, those who cause the greatest harm to the greatest number are ignored by the law and penal system....their poisonous and greed-driven practices destructive to the environment and to the social fabric go unchecked.

We do not have about ourselves a clear notion of what it means to be genuine human beings who treat all others with respect and kindness.......and no where is this in greater evidence than in our large razor-wired zoo cages where we daily keep more than two million fellow American citizens behind locked doors.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Local gun laws could bring lawsuits; Congressional candidate Scott Perry in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89613#376362014-10-22T14:10:25ZRobert Colgan
Scott Perry is a prime example of why the USA is in the straits it finds itself.
A militarist------he fails to see that the lies of war have caused U.S. to be not only the largest seller of military hardware on the planet, but the largest terrorist group in the world.
No other country has done more to impose its will on other nations through military intervention in the last 50 years than the U.S.
No other country has spent anywhere near the amount of money on building up and maintaining a huge military in all its manifestations.
No other country has troops stationed throughout other countries in the world as does the U.S. and it SOFAgreements in approximately 200 nations.
No other single country has killed the number of people or displaced through warfare the number of people the U.S. has over the last 50 years.

---Indisputable facts, but they are not only ignored by people in Congress like Perry, but denied.

Nothing has been done to stop Wall St from running the show.
The revolving door between Congress and Wall St is a given.
The influx of money from Wall St to Congress means that the real power resides in Wall St.

As a result of the perpetrated financial crash of 2008, Americans have lost approximately 33% of their wealth (which went to Wall Streeters, industrialists, and bankers) . . . with the end result that trust in Congress is at an all-time low.
The first job of Congress, its mandate, is to protect the American people------but as a result of disastrous military ventures, criminal giveaways to financiers, and a total failure to address infrastructure needs here--including wages and employment----------Congress has shown itself completely inept...including Perry.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Local gun laws could bring lawsuits; Congressional candidate Scott Perry in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89613#376322014-10-22T13:38:10ZRobert Colgan
The gun lobby, mostly in the person of Republican legislators, believes that ANY legislation affecting citizen's right to own firearms is somehow an insult to individual rights------------they might say they don't believe this------------but their track record in fighting such legislation says otherwise.

It doesn't matter that the safety of Pennsylvanians, and the rights of Pennsylvanians to make local zoning laws that seek to protect local residents is compromised by their ardent gun advocacy...........for them, the unrestricted right to own guns is primary.
Reminds one of vehicle ownership and laws: there are sound reasons why we have laws regarding inspections, registration, licensure, and very defined laws establishing speed limits, passing limits, parking limits, weight limits, passenger limits, littering.....etc etc.

The fact that local municipalities SHOULD be able to establish their own laws regarding gun use and registration is only common sense.....
.....But common sense doesn't apply to the gun advocates in PA.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Protecting crime victims from mental anguish; Preparing with insecure Social Security in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89504#375732014-10-13T14:23:13ZRobert Colgan
I found myself getting really angry listening to Jennifer Storm. . .in greatest part because she has such selective compassion.
People like Mumia Abu-Jamal may have done things regrettable ----in the PAST....but it doesn't define them for the human beings they are now.
For Ms Storm it FOREVER condemns them as valueless.

She conveniently ignores that people commit crimes all the time.....and some are punished, and some escape without any social penalty.
But for her, because someone was convicted of a crime----they are the very incarnation of evil.

I wonder if Ms Storm knows how many American soldiers did reprehensible things during their stays in combat zones.....things that if they were done in civilian peacetime would incur life sentencing...?
I wonder if Ms Storm knows how many American corporate executives make decisions that they know end up costing people's lives and health and wealth, but do it just because there may be some profit in it for them and their companies.
(the drug Vioxx alone is said to have killed more than 75,000 people and the drug maker knew that from clinical trials that it caused heart damage---but ignored that part of the trial in their marketing)
(Monsanto has known for the last 27 years that the chemical they sell along with their modified seeds causes endocrine disruption, impotency, birth defects, and immune system compromise-----------but continue to sell No Till farming to the American farmers who unknowingly poison the countryside and their countrymen)

Victims need to have their protections from being victimized anew, their right to safety, true------but the means by which such protections are obtained may ultimately be to the detriment of the rights of everyone.

Please grow a heart, Ms Storm. They're useful organs.

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Commented on Smart Talk: Public "aware" of domestic violence but what to do is next step in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89420#375492014-10-06T13:15:29ZRobert Colgan
Once again, I will say what I have said other times on this topic--------until we recognize it for what it actually is, and change the name of it to reflect the reality we will not fully arouse the public sentiment:

IT IS DOMESTIC TERRORISM.

Re-badge it, engage the public consciousness to it by identifying it for its effects which are ones of PTSD for the millions of women and the children exposed to it just as are the effects of any prolonged exposure to terror------and not just in the USA, but around the world. It is a global issue, a global social problem.

IT IS DOMESTIC TERRORISM.

Call it what it is.

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Commented on Smart Talk: What will lawmakers do in new session? in Smart Talktag:www.witf.org,2014:/smart-talk//9.89126#374172014-09-15T12:48:49ZRobert Colgan
I suspect the lawmakers in Harrisburg will do what they always do:

push for term limits
push for a part-time legislature
push for an end to legislative perks and pensions
push for a Constitutional Convention
push for an Environmental Impact Study of the effects of fracking
push for citizen-backed referenda on general election ballots
push for effective school tax reform so that the elderly can keep their homes